Wireless communication systems have become ubiquitous in society. Business and consumers use a wide variety of fixed and mobile wireless devices, including cell phones, pagers, Personal Communication Services (PCS) systems, and fixed wireless access devices (e.g., vending machines with cell phone capability).
Wireless communication networks generally include base stations that support a single air interface standard for communicating with the wireless devices. A separate overlay of additional hardware is needed to support each additional air interface standard, which increases costs and deployment times. Some wireless communication providers use reconfigurable baseband processing components in base stations. However, even these base stations are configured once and are operated in a static-configuration mode.
Therefore, there is a need in the art for wireless communication networks that implement flexible architectures that may be readily adapted to changes in air interface standards. In particular, there is a need for an improved wireless network architecture in which infrastructure equipment may be reconfigured to adapt to changing air interface standards.